O brave poets, keep back nothing;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward! speak the read more

O brave poets, keep back nothing;
Nor mix falsehood with the whole!
Look up Godward! speak the truth in
Worthy song from earnest soul!
Hold, in high poetic duty,
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty.

Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five read more

Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.

Happy the poet who with ease can steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
[Lat., read more

Happy the poet who with ease can steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
[Lat., Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d'une voix legere
Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au severe.]

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard;
To carry nature read more

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard;
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the read more

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If read more

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

And poets by their sufferings grow,--
As if there were no more to do,
To make a read more

And poets by their sufferings grow,--
As if there were no more to do,
To make a poet excellent,
But only want and discontent.